Diabetes mellitus is an incurable chronic disease in which the body does not produce or properly utilize insulin. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that regulates blood glucose. In particular, when blood glucose levels rise, e.g., after a meal, insulin lowers the blood glucose levels by facilitating blood glucose to move from the blood into the body cells. Thus, when the pancreas does not produce sufficient insulin, (a condition known as Type 1 Diabetes) or does not properly utilize insulin (a condition known as Type 2 Diabetes), the blood glucose remains in the blood resulting in hyperglycemia or abnormally high blood sugar levels.
People suffering from diabetes often experience long-term complications. Some of these complications include blindness, kidney failure, and nerve damage. Additionally, diabetes is a factor in accelerating cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), which often leads to stroke, coronary heart disease, and other diseases which can be life threatening.
The severity of the complications caused by both persistent high glucose levels and blood glucose level fluctuations has provided the impetus to develop diabetes management systems and treatment plans. In this regard, diabetes management generally includes multiple daily testing of blood glucose levels by applying blood samples to test strips and analyzing the blood sample using a blood glucose meter. More recently, diabetes management has included continuous glucose monitoring systems. Glucose monitoring systems have the capability to continuously monitor a user's blood glucose fluctuations over a period of time and display the results to a user.
In such systems, it would be desirable to have a display and/or a user interface capable of robust, comprehensive information presentation, analysis, processing, user manipulation and/or usability features including, for example, programmable alarms and alerts, comprehensive visual, audible and/or vibratory output for assisting in diabetes management and improving glycemic control.